The Courtship of the Professor and the Librarian
by ChocolatMoosePi
Summary: What will happen when Luke and Lorelai get roped into performing opposite each other in the Stars Hollow Elementary School's production of The Music Man? This is a repost, because the italics didn't show up before. Will be T later. Just an Author's Note
1. Tell Tale Dreams and Awkward Awakenings

Pairing: Luke & Lorelai (seriously, what else...?)

Setting: Despite what the beginning may imply, sometime before "Luke Can See Her Face."

Disclaimer: I don't know why people even write these things. It's obvious that I don't own anything, so don't sue me. There ya go, that's all you really need to know.

A/N: Special thanks to ocdwithlhg who reformatted this story into word for me so i could post it. A/N 2: I reposted this because the italics didn't show up the first time i did it. The italics are there to show that those are Lorelai's thoughts. 

The bell above the door jingled pleasantly. _It jingled all the way_, thought Lorelai. _Ooh, the sleighs! That's what would make the night perfect! I'll rent the sleighs we used for the Bracebridge dinner!_

The last few weeks had been hectic and unorganized at the Gilmore household. _By that I mean more so than usual: not just a few pairs of the extra tight jeans, a Hello Kitty waffle iron, and that underwear with the propellers on them strewn carelessly about the floor_, she interjected. _No, scratch that, they're always, in fact, placed rather carefully; some of my things just don't get along. If you leave the Jimmy Choo's by the running shoes, the running shoes will get jealous. No, certain things must be kept in opposite corners from each other._ Yes, this is all very reasonable thinking, indeed. An organized chaos, if you will.

Well, with the holiday season just around the corner, and their anniversary, in fact, a few days before that, there is nothing organized about this chaos. With all the planning left to do, the inside of Lorelai's head is more hectic than usual, AND running in overdrive.

Imagine, if you will, a bomb. This bomb is filled with tons of little wires, all connecting to different sites. These wires are all pulled out and reorganized, often put into the wrong spot. In this chaos, you can imagine what would happen: the bomb explodes. _Ooh, I've got one! It's like Mulhulland Drive in California! All these cars are racing foreword, and passing each other, competing for the front of the line, and there are so many dips and bumps, and well, sudden turns on the road, that a few cars are just bound to crash, and it would be perfectly normal for one or two to completely run off the road and into a tree or something, right?_ Yes, well, because the stress is just never enough until you add caffeine to the mix, Lorelai stands at the counter of Luke's diner. _You bet I need coffee! You mean the steaming brown liquid that is my elixir of life? That's the only life support machine I'll ever need? That's, well, the love of my life? (That is, it's the love of my life next to the hunk that gives it to me!) Speaking of my lovely Luuuuuuuuuukey, is that his voice I hear?_

"So, what'll it be?" _Hmmm, it certainly SOUNDS like him..._ "Lorelai?" _God, I love that voice._

"Okay, I'm gonna count to ten now." _Oh! That's another one! My mind's like Time's Square on New Year's Eve during the countdown: hectic, crowded, loud, can't move, can't breathe, claustrophobic, causes you to hyperventilate, like a straight jacket, you start to suffocate; you're in hell. Then, suddenly, "10!... 9!... 8!... 7!... 6!... 5!... 4!... 3!...2!... 1!... HAPPY NEW YEAR!" The ball drops, and everything is lost. You have to start all over again, on a clean slate._

"Okay, Cheeseburger and fries it is." In Lorelai's in depth conversation with herself, she'd failed to answer Luke's question, at all. _Oh well, he's used to it._

Finally, Luke's words made it to her, as we've said already, frazzled mind, "Bring coffee, too, please!"

"And she speaks..." Lorelai hears Luke mumble from the kitchen. _Hey, what's up with all this third person stuff, anyway? Who's narrating this thing?_

"Very funny," _I shoot back (see, all first person pronouns)_, "I'm just a little distracted. I've been really busy, lately."

"Not too busy for this, I hope," Luke hints as he leans over to kiss her softly on the lips.

"Oh, I'm never too busy for THAT," _I can always clear my schedule._

BRRRRRRRRING BRRRRRRRRING BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRING

"Jingle... bells... Jingle bells... dashing through...snow," Lorelai mumbles sleepily before getting up to pick up the ringing phone. "You better have a damn good reason for calling me so early, or I'm gonna rip off your head and feed it to those hell hounds Mrs. Kim keeps talking about... I mean, I had a child out of wedlock my friend, and when I was 16, no less; they've got to be lurking around here somewhere..." She slurred sleepily into the phone, while simultaneously investigating her surroundings, as though searching for said hell hounds.

"Um, Lorelai? Hi... It's Luke. Is this a bad time...?"

Lorelai glances over at the fuzzy blue alarm clock by her bed, "Luke, its 5:00 in the morning. I'm sorry; don't take this the wrong way, but what the hell could you possibly want?"

"Oh, sorry, I'll keep it short."

"I would be much obliged."

"Okay, you see, the Stars Hollow elementary school is putting on a production of The Music Man. The thing is, this year; they're choosing to have most of the adult roles played by adults in the community. I have no idea how it happened, but I, somehow..." his voice suddenly dropped dramatically in volume as he mumbled the last part of the sentence.

"Oh, I'm sorry, what was that, Luke, dear? I couldn't hear you over the absolutely dead silence that tends to accompany this ungodly hour. You'll have to speak up." Lorelai said in the most sarcastic tone she could muster up at 5:00 in the morning.

"I said I got roped into playing Professor Harold Hill..." Luke said back, slightly grudgingly.

"What! Oh my God! That's hilarious! My little Lukey's gonna be a singer... He got the big lead in the school musical... I'm soooooooo proud of my little Lukey..." by now, Lorelai is using her singsong voice that she tends to reserve for babies.

"Okay, you can shut up now... Anyway, they asked me to cast the role of Marion Paroo. I only really know of two people I'd ever consider casting, and it would be kind of weird to be acting opposite Rory, so I guess that leaves you."

"Oh, I'm sorry, what was that? Little Lukey Poo wants me to be in the musical with him? Does he need to me to stand beside him and hold his hand during the scary big performance? Does he want me to keep him company, and dance with him, and sing with him, and -" Luke, being fed up, cut her off there. It's most likely for the best, though, as Lorelai's following words would likely have taken the path of, "and kiss him."

"Would you cut it out already? Do you want to be in the musical, or not?"

Lorelai hesitated ever so slightly before answering, "Uh, sure, Luke, okay."

A/N: Yes, I know that this is an EXTREMELY unlikely scenario, but oh well. Lorelai would be far more likely to be conning Luke (though he probably wouldn't give in), but, hey, are to be different, right...? I definitely should have come up with the reason for giving in before I wrote/posted this part, but I'm working on that (any ideas...?).

A/N 2: This, obviously, wasn't intended to be a one shot piece, but should I continue, or not...? I wasn't that happy with the quality of my writing on this piece, but I wanted to post it, anyway, so please let me know if you think it's any good. 


	2. I'm Awake, It's Your Fault, Now Spill

A/N: Sorry, I know that this chapter's really short, and not so great, 'cause I was in a hurry when I typed it up. I would have written more, but that would take a lot longer, and this way, I can post SOMETHING. To the few of you who had asked me to continue: sorry for the looooooong delay. So, here is the EXTREMELY short, and kinda pointless chapter... Oh, and I would have posted this, like, a week ago, too, but the stupid people took down the story of mine about the petition, and so I couldn't post anything for a while. By the way, the link to the petition (type it in without the spaces and parentheses) is: (h t t p / w w w . p e t i t i o n s p o t . c o m / p e t i t i o n s / s a v e g i l m o r e g i r l s) I'd give you more information on the petition here, but I don't want the wardens to take this story down, too, so go to my profile, or just type in the address. Anywho: Chapter two in the saga...

It was about 5:30 in the morning, and Luke was going through his usual routine to prepare to open the diner at 6:00. He was just beginning to take the chairs down off the tabletops when he looked out the window to see someone sitting on the steps outside. He opened the door to find none other than Lorelai Gilmore.

"What are you doing here so early in the morning?" he asked her with a tone of half confusion and half annoyance.

"Well, funny you should ask. It just so happens that a certain friend of mine woke me up at 5 a.m. to call and ask if I'd be in a play with him. Well, naturally, I was a little confused. I mean, seriously, who the hell calls someone at such an ungodly hour to ask such a question? Who does that? What was even more confusing to me, however, was the fact that the certain person who happened to be asking such a favor happens to be the most antisocial man in all of Stars Hollow, and thus the least likely candidate for the lead role in a musical. These factors combined to create a very confusing circumstance for me. It left me to ponder several things: why did he call me at 5 in the morning, rather than at a more respectable hour? Why did he feel the need to ask me such an, apparently, urgent question, rather than leaving it to the people who are actually in charge of the play? What could possibly have possessed him to want to act in a musical? Does he even sing? Furthermore, how did the powers that be manage to convince him to take the role in the first place? These are the questions that were running through my mind at the time. Questions that still remain unanswered. I couldn't sleep, so I went into the kitchen to get myself some coffee. It was truly a pathetic sight to see how much I had left - only half the canister - so I made it all, making a mental note to go to Doose's this afternoon to pick up more. Basically, I finished all the coffee in my house, and before 5:30 a.m.! And thus, I sit here, on the doorstep of he who is the cause of my currently troubled and sleepless state."

"Ah. Well, come on in." Lorelai followed his command, taking a seat at the counter, where she could easily interrogate Luke. "I don't have any coffee made yet, because I wasn't expecting an addict to stop by until, at the very least, when we opened."

"Yes," she replied, "and I wasn't expecting to get a phone call until, at least, when any sane person wakes up... I guess we can't always go by what would be expected. Make coffee."

"Fair enough..." Luke grumbled. He knew there would be questions soon to come. As soon as he fueled her, she would take off. He wasn't so sure that he was prepared to undergo the questioning as of yet. "Here," he said quietly, almost in fear of what to come as he put the mug down in front of her.

"So," Lorelai started, jumping right in, "what's going on with you? the questions I listed before may have seemed rhetorical, but, strangely enough, I actually would like them answered, mister... So, come on, come on, don't be shy... Start explaining."

A/N: Sorry, sorry, sorry. As I said, I know that this is a really, really short chapter, and there's not really much of a point to it. It is, however, all I could do in the time provided. Ill try to update with a real chapter in a few days, but I really can't promise anything. Ya know, that's what I like about writing one shots: you cn write it on your own time, and post the completed thing, so you don't have to worry about updating it for the people who want you to... Oh, and I know that the chapter names are really weird, too. Sorry about that. 


	3. My Mother

A/N: Sorry that my last chapter was so short. This one's really not much longer (curse my oppressive shedule! - and adapted Gilmore Girls quote), but it tells you why Luke's in the play (even though the reason isn't all that great). I don't really have that many people reading this fic right now, but thanks to those of you who are, and please keep reviewing. I may have mentioned this before, but I don't have any of the approved word processors on my computer (I use AppleWorks), so I have to upload a document someone sent to me in Word every time I want to post something, and then click edit, and type my story in there. It's complicated... Anyway, because of this, it's really a pain to do italics, and stuff, because I have to type in all the symbols Word uses every time I change something. Thus, assume that anything that's outside of the double (not single) quotes, and not a narration, is one of their thoughts. Now, on with the story...

"Explain what?" Luke uttered as confidently as he could, trying not to seem too obvious. Oh, who was he kidding? Lorelai's not stupid, and she's certainly not someone who backs down so easily. He's cornered, and doomed...

Ah, evasive measures, I see... Well, not good enough, bucko, "Explain why you agreed to be in the play," that's right, Lorleai: be straightforward and to the point, now he has nowhere to hide. Mwaha, Mwahaha, Mwahahahahahahahahaha.

Damnit! Hm, well, perhaps if you speak really, really quietly, she won't hear you... Luke would soon have followed that advice, but, realizing who it was coming from, chose to ignore it, completely. 'Will you just shutup! Like I'm gonna keep listening to the little narrator in my head...' Still, Luke, you have to answer her... 'I know, okay!' "Um, yeah, I'll tell ya, but you can't laugh, okay?" You can't laugh? What, are we in kindergarten?

Ha, what, are we in kindergarten? Well, I'll at least ENDEAVOR to keep a straight face... Heehee, yeah right... "Um, sure, I won't laugh, Luke..." Unless It's really funny.

"Okay, yeah, uh... I'm in the play because of my mother..." It's all out there now.

Oh, that's really not funny... "Oh, um, I'm sorry, I didn't know... If you don't mind me asking, what does The Music Man have to do with your mother?

"Well, when she was alive, she just really loved musicals. The Music Man was her favorite, and she always told me how much she would love to see me playing that lead role someday. I tried to put it on once for her as a kid, but it, uh, didn't go too well."

"What happened?" she asked, truly interested.

"Well, first of all, I asked Liz to play Marion. Kinda gross, I know, but, yeah... We were, uh, we were putting on the play for her when she just... collapsed. We didn't even know what happened. One moment, she was smiling, and watching us, and the next... she just closed her eyes, and fell out of her chair. We brought her to the hospital, and that's when they diagnosed her. They told us she had cancer. A brain tumor, actually. She had surgery, and they tried to remove it, but nothing worked. Three months later, she died. She never saw the end of the play, so I just... I dunno. I guess I feel like I owe it to her. I never really wanted to put on the musical, in the first place, but I would have done anything my mother. I just feel like..." Luke paused for a while, contemplating, and trying to get himself together, and keep from crying in front of Lorelai, "I feel like it was her dream. At least, she told me it was. It just seems wrong to not follow through on her wishes."

"Oh my God, Luke, I am so, so sorry. If I had known... well, I wouldn't have bugged you aboud it so much," she, too paused, half worried that she might say something totally Lorelai-like, and totally insensitive, and half afraid that he was mad at her, "You know, Luke? You're a really good son. I'm sure your mom's proud of you, and I'm sure that, wherever she is right now, she's looking down on you and smiling."

"Yeah, well... Are you still in?"

"In?" A/N: haha, kind of reminiscent of Written in the Stars, huh?

"Yeah, do you still want to be in the musical?"

"Oh, of course. You bet I am."

"Good, good... thanks. So, do you want more coffee?"

"What?" she was understandably confused, still trying to be the comforting friend, " oh yeah, sure. Thanks, Luke." Just then, Ms. Patty came into the diner.

"Oh Luke, darling, how's our little Harold this morning?"

Oh jeez... "I'm fine, Patty, thanks..." he said, returning to his usual grumble, after his uncharacteristic outpour of feelings.

"Good... And who is it that you're having play Marion?" she shot a knowing sideways glance at Lorelai, who only smiled back at her.

"Well, uh-" he was cut off.

"I am, Patty," Lorelai answered confidently, honored to have been chosen after hearing that story.

"Well of course you are, dear. Who else would he choose? We would have asked you anyway. We only asked him to choose because we knew he'd ask you, and we knew he could convince you to do it. Now, why he ever agreed to do it, himself, is a mystery to us, but it certainly is convenient..." she dropped the not subtle hint that she would love to know the gossip behind his agreeing.

Luke shot a sideways glance at Lorelai, saying 'Please don't tell her.' She smiled, silently answering him, 'I never would.' Patty noticed the exchange between the two, once again giving Lorelai a knowing smile. Luke just rolled his eyes, "so did you just come in to ask that, or did you want some food, Patty?"

"Pancakes and toast, dear." Luke shook his head, slightly, going to the kitchen to start the order.

As he returned, Lorelai walked up to the cashregister to pay him for the coffee. She spoke to him quietly, saying, "thanks, Luke; thanks for telling me..."

"It's no problem," he answered in the same hushed tone, failing to mention that she was the only person he'd ever told that to. Somehow, she still knew she was, and she smiled at him with this knowledge. As she handed him the money, he whispered to her, "it's on the house, and thanks for listening."

Lorelai smiled once again, and began to walk out. Desperately wishing that she had been close enough to hear what they had just been saying, Patty called after her, "practice is tomorrow at three."

"I'll be there," she said, and the bell above the door jingled behind her.

A/N: Okay, so I guess that chapter had a bit more of a point to it. I know it seems kind of out of character to have Luke talking so much about the experience to Lorelai (and INCREDIBLY out of character to have him in the musical, but too bad), but it's about his mother, so who knows. Thanks for reading, and please drop a review with your thoughts. Should I continue, or not? I barely have any reviews on this story, so I'll only keep writing if more people start reading it. 


	4. Author's Note

Um, I'm really sorry to the two or three reviewers that have gotten, well, a little impatient (lol) over the fact thatI haven't updated in, well, forever. I am planning on writing more, and I have a chapter that's in progress, but I'm REALLY busy, so I haven't had time. I would have put an author's note up sooner, but, well, technically, we're not supposed to, and I've already had one story removed (that I didn't have saved, so i couldn't repost; blast!). People keep bugging me, though, so I guess i just have to hope that nobody will report me. I hate it when people start appologizing profusely, seeming somewhat full of themselves to think that it's as though their readers' lives depend on their updates, but some reviewers have gotten very peeved at me... Well... I really will try to update soon. Sorry again... The Donkey of the Political Sort 


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